Dish satellite questions

[MiRvn]

For the record. I know almost nothing about Satellite dishes... So be gentle.

I want to take my Dish Network Hopper receiver and a dish with me camping this weekend to catch some football games. I have a stand, and an old Dish 500 satellite dish. Will this pair even work or do I need to acquire a newer dish? I'd rather not pull my current dish off the house. I'm also a little worried that if I go messing with the settings on the receiver that it's going to be hell to get it back to "home mode".

[Bill_Satellite]

The Hopper requires the Dish Pro Plus LNB (It will show DPP printed on the LNB itself) plus the Solo Node that you currently have wired into your home Hopper setup. You can buy another cheap so you don't have to mess with the home setup.
I suggest a tripod setup like you would find at www.TV4RV.com. It's going to take some practice but since this will be the exact same thing you have on your home you will not have to change any settings in the Hopper. You just have to learn to point the antenna precisely so an app like Dish Pointer Pro by Augmented Reality will get you a large boost in that direction.

[TechWriter]

lryrob9301 wrote:
The old DISH 500 antenna will not work very well with the Hopper. You need a DISH 1000.2 or DISH 1000.4 antenna for your Hopper.

At best you will get sats 110 & 119 (or 119 and 129 if you mis-aim the dish).

There's also a couple of "favors" of DISH 500s -- I think you need a DISH 500 Pro Plus.

[Mudinyeri]

A good source for newer dishes is your own neighborhood. Using the Nextdoor app or website (www.nextdoor.com), post a wanted ad in the classified section looking for a "newer" dish. Many people will give you the dish for free if you remove it from their house.

[MiRvn]

Sandia Man wrote:
Sounds like it is your first time doing Sat tv while RVing,

Correct! We pull pretty good channels over the air most places we go. Unfortunately, most of the games including U of M (MSU fan myself but camping with dirty Wolverine fans) are played on cable channels.

I have a feeler out to see if I can acquire an appropriate dish. I guess if not, i'll do as you suggested and give it a shot in the driveway with the 500.

[Sandia_Man]

Sounds like it is your first time doing Sat tv while RVing, I always suggest setting it up at home first to get some familiarity with the process. It becomes easier with practice, plus you could verify if your Dish 500 will work with your Hopper as you intend to use it.

We've been setting up our own sat dish for both Directv and Dish for over a dozen years and it has become second nature for us. Good luck, one of the major reasons we always set up our satellite dish is to view our favorite sports no matter where we park.

[lryrob9301]

The old DISH 500 antenna will not work very well with the Hopper. You need a DISH 1000.2 or DISH 1000.4 antenna for your Hopper.